2330/Citysoul: Soul Music

Citysoul: Soul Music
Date of Scene:	12 July 2020
Location:	Bronx
Synopsis:	The Spirit of the Bronx is recovered ... the Song of Hope is sung!
Cast of Characters:	Stephen Strange, Julio Richter, Illyana Rasputina, Michael Hannigan, Mary Bromfield, Megan Gwynn, Sara Pezzini
Tinyplot:	Citysoul

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Stephen Strange has posed:
There is turmoil over Brooklyn. A strange darkness spreading out from the astral wound that was Bushwick stretches out over the City, moving in one direction and then another as though possessed of a mind and purpose. To those uninitiated in the mystic arts, the growing pall of darkness is unseen but not unfelt. The mood of the City grows colder and more severe, the weather unseasonably chill. What might otherwise be small arguments screech out of the upper windows of homes, full of vitriol and violence. The gutters seem choked with filth and everywhere there is a grim feeling of hopelessness that hangs thick over New York City.

The housing projects of Washington Heights are not different. The streets around them and the pathways wending between the tower blocks are dark, the streetlights failing to do more than illuminate the patch of pavement beneath. This was a place of power once. A place that inspired song and story. A place the masses flocked to so they might watch titans stride the Earth. Now, it is a grim and forbidding concrete edifice serving as the home for those who would otherwise have none.

The draw is strong. Whatever lies within reaches out through the ephemeral to grasp the hands of those marked by this moment in the City's long history. On a heavily graffitied bench before the building's entrance, an old boombox stereo several decades out of place booms. The song it plays has the psychedelic, electric strum that speaks of 1960s rock:

    "I'm alive!
    And I see things mighty clear today.
    I'm alive!
    I'm alive!
    And I'm breathin' clean fresh air today."

Julio Richter has posed:
Julio Richter isn't exactly a fixture in New York anymore, but he did spend some time living in the area, and although those months weren't the best time he's ever had, there are some places he'd miss if he didn't stop in for a visit now and then. Moodies Records in the Bronx is one of them; he struck up a bit of a friendship with one of the clerks, chatting about Spanish-language punk bands, and now that he's in a better place, he stops in from time to time to catch up or even pick up some vinyl when he can afford to.

He's got a bagged record in one hand and is heading back toward the subway station, already drinking in the seismic echoes of the underground with his mutant powers (a pleasant habit, and doubly so when he's below the surface), when he feels something decidedly 'off.' Julio is not, to his knowledge, a man who is magically inclined. But he is increasingly a man attuned to the Earth and the feelings it gives him.

Staying aboveground, for the moment, he makes his way across the street, drawing in a drip feed of the thunder seismic, carefully regulated so that he can keep hold of that anomalous feeling without his shifting aura of mutant energy becoming visible. The splinter in his mutant mind's eye brings him to the tenement, to the bench, and to the boom box. He squints at the lyrics, which he doesn't recognize, then up at the building. The guitar sound is vintage, for sure, but pretty raw. He flashes a tight smile of approval.

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
A long night promises to stretch out even longer for the Demon Queen of Limbo. How effortless it might be to tuck herself away, watch a movie and a favourite tipple, perhaps an overglorified smoothie thrown together from whatever fruit happens to be in the freezer or a bowl. What limited appeal that holds fades away, diminished to shadows and spell-dust her wake. The blonde sorceress stepping forth from the Sanctum Sanctorum in the heart of Manhattan hurtles through time and space in a blink, threading the eye of the needle to reach the Bronx almost the same moment she left Greenwich Village.

Blackness seeps overhead and renders the sole check of a mobile phone even brighter, its screen bleeding a defiant glow. She could hold it up to shine her way, but things lurking in the night ought to fear her far more than she fears them. So she moves among the chunky, oversized hulks beached on the city's shores, drowsing in their self-importance with the desperation of lives guttering out. Dark boots leave almost no sound upon the broken concrete, though everything else might stick out, not fitting in quite right, except for the projected attitude that simply doesn't care about other's opinions, a defiant purpose shoving it to the Man.

In that, they're awfully alike. Johnny Thunder gives a fuzzy soul vibe without restraint, and she meets that attitude with a curl of her lip. No clean fresh air, no hot, swift justice promised. There's an uncanny sense of knowing exactly where to go, and sooner or later, that means colliding with Julio. Julio colliding with her. Either way, he's dealing with a familiar face. "You know, then."

It's not a question.

Michael Hannigan has posed:
Mike's a tad tired. He's already had to deal with red cap goblins ruining a music event just yesterday. Not one he was performing at, but one he was going to kick back and enjoy a beer at. Alas. But maybe today would be different.

He didn't really have any plans today, maybe subconciously he wanted to go check out the ice palace as himself this time since the one he met there didn't seem to have any issue with visitors. Or perhaps he just wanted to wander but, like with the time he first met Strange. He just ends up here. As the music reaches his ears, his head just, sways slightly to the music, lips quietly mouthing the lyrics. Hmm. Johnny Thunder.

Mary Bromfield has posed:
Mary is a Philly girl at heart, having just moved to New York a little while ago, but she's bound with senses beyond her own. Even if she's not quite fully aware of them. She's currently texting someone on her phone, half-heartedly keeping an eye on what's going on around her... mainly making sure that she doesn't get into the zone and crash into anyone unexpectedly.

She pauses at the music, though, heading over towards the source of it instinctively. When she does so, she sees Illyana and Julio there first, giving them both a bit of a cautious smile, "Er... hi?" She's not quite sure what's going on, but she's starting to feel the wrongness more... tangibly now.

Megan Gwynn has posed:
Megan Gwynn is here, drawn by unseen forces that nonetheless resonate with her being. and stick out like a dangerous beacon. Something...Is not right. What happened here? She's fairly new to the magical community but no less determined to do her part to help out.

She too, makes her way down to the residency area and too the boom box, biting her lip, peering at it curiously. "Oooh, what's this?" it's a nice song, a bit nostalgic maybe and it has piqued her curiosity somehow as she stops to stare up at the building beyond.

She pauses, glancing at others gathered here but really only recognizes Mike, whom she grins and waves to. "Hii! was sup?" oh and Illy. huh, this can't be good, "Illy? what's going on?" she frowns.

Sara Pezzini has posed:
Murder is the lure for Pezzini. Its bloody trail leads her to the Heights as it is collectively known, ironic considering how dangerous it became before it began the slow crawl toward gentrification.

She is ostensibly on a case in the borough. The Witchblade has other ideas. The innocuous bracelet that circles Sara's right wrist, pulses with the currents in the City. It is on the trail of something else, and Sara, who has co-existed for several months with the power that chose her, knows that she should listen to it.

On the street, she crosses a man carrying a flat paper package. The bracelet gives her a throbbing pulse that stops her dead in her tracks to stare at the man and the blonde woman by his side. The Witchblade pulses in time with the music that fills the air.

Sara Pezzini has posed:
Murder is the lure for Pezzini. Its bloody trail leads her to the Heights as it is collectively known, ironic considering how dangerous it became before it began the slow crawl toward gentrification.

She is ostensibly on a case in the borough. The Witchblade has other ideas. The innocuous bracelet that circles Sara's right wrist, pulses with the currents in the City. It is on the trail of something else, and Sara, who has co-existed for several months with the power that chose her, knows that she should listen to it.

On the street, she crosses a man carrying a flat paper package. The bracelet gives her a throbbing pulse that stops her dead in her tracks to stare at the man and the blonde woman by his side. The Witchblade pulses in time with the music that fills the air.

Stephen Strange has posed:
As the group begin to gather near the stereo, Johnny Thunder continues to sing. Despite the up-tempo music, the oppressive air of the place doesn't seem to let up. The cloud cover is thick overhead, blotting out any vestiges of a natural sky that might have otherwise been visible. Flooding in from the east, out of drains and from down dismal alleys, black smoke pours. It does not have the smell of smoke, and it gives off an icy chill when touched. For now, it floats out across the ground at ankle depth.

As it passes through the forecourt of the tower, a pair of shadows by the door take form. They solidify into a pair of men, though even a cursory glance will show something off about them. One wears early 1990s club fashion, save that it is badly burnt along with the rest of his body. The other wears a uniform from the earliest days of baseball at the Polo Grounds, a heavy-looking bat held against his shoulder. They appear to pay no attention to the group, staring out ahead.

On the bench, the radio hisses static and then Prince and the Revolution begin to play:

    "I don't care where we go.
    I don't care what we do.
    I don't care, pretty baby.
    Just take me with you."

Julio Richter has posed:
Julio starts when he realizes who he has collided with. "Illyana?" he asks, his accented voice pleased, if certainly surprised, to see a familiar face. "I... felt something," he replies to her succinct statement, wiggling one set of fingers next to his ear. There might just be a sparkle of green energy leaping between fingertips -- she'll get it. "I don't know what I felt." Implicit in his voice is a sort of grim confidence that she does. Illyana knows a lot of things other people don't.

Then Mary speaks, and he whirls to face her, looking for all the world as though he has been caught doing something wrong. Force of habit? "Eh, hola," he echoes her across a short linguistic divide, not hostile but not instantly welcoming, either. Megan's greeting puts him even more out of his element, but she seems to know Illyana, so he tentatively puts her on the border of the circle of trust.

Sara and Mike? They ring no bells and say no words, so for the moment he's got them filed under 'passers-by.' For the Witchblade's information, though, he hasn't killed anyone in... well... weeks. And that was a special case!

He takes a step back as smoke flows past them to solidify into the two strange figures, his free hand coming up toward them in a gesture as if to hold them distant. He doesn't try anything yet; he just turns his head to face Illyana. This definitely seems like her kind of thing and he's going to follow her lead.

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
Danger shivers through the shadows and sinks into the urban marrow, hurried along its course by the rampant corruption and neglect. Failures by society and government lie in every vivid streak of paint raked down the smashed infrastructure, vacant hollows drawing Illyana's circumspect regard. Sometimes the darkness blinks first. Sometimes teeth and claws and howling words reply from the inquiry. Music still slinks in the air, prowling notes pumped out from the speakers, beckoning a dance or throwing off inhibitions. She isn't much seduced.

"You have come." A statement of fact as those souls collide, some known well and others barely recognized. An upnod gives a terse greeting to them all. Face in profile, the Rasputina scion gazes up among the shadowy buildings, poorly lit at best, to the simmering dome of the blackened sky. A gesture to the mist that comes near, though her reaction to that is singularly harsh: eyes shift out of any human hue, lancing off glimmering pallor of armour suddenly shifted into existence around her right arm. Silver-limned in sorrow, moonlight locks into place with the bleak radiance of Pelham Bay.

"The attack on Brooklyn poisoned the city. You were called to help staunch the bleeding, if you choose." Explanations given with a terse quality speak to her brisk walk. "We have little time. Corruption spreads too fast, too far. I come to evacuate the spiritual embodiment of the Bronx. He, she, they? They will look like a person, and they should be around here somewhere."

No sword, yet. "The music keeps shifting decades. Hiphop next. Maybe Run DMC, who else?" Julio and Mike are on the spot, assumptions taken. "A voice. Do you sense anything else?"

Mary Bromfield has posed:
Mary actually looks over at Illyana at that, "Ah... by the tower?" She points over by the shadowy figures near the door. She frowns a little bit, unable to keep from shivering as she feels the icy tendrils tickling around her ankles. She glances around, biting her lip as she looks decidedly uneasy, and it's all she can do to keep from saying the Magic Word.

Of course, it's not like anyone here knows who she is, but there IS that whole secret identity thing...

Megan Gwynn has posed:
Megan Gwynn bites her lip, shivering a bit nervously as she notes the black creepy smoke forming into people, and music playing through the ages. "What the heck? Some kinda mystic wound? What's this gotta do with music and travelling through time?" she does notice other faces, had she seen Sara somewhere before and Mary? She can sense something from them..Hulio is less familiar but Megan focuses mostly on Illy who always seems to hold an air of authority.

She shakes her head, gritting her teeth, no way she's gonna chicken out. "Just lead the way..Let us know what to do.."

Michael Hannigan has posed:
Hearing a familiar voice, Mike turns his head slightly as he sees the waving Megan. "Hey Megan." It seems it's much easier to remember the name of someone who portaled you off a floating set piece that was on fire. "Just roaming. Funny running into y-." He pauses, seeing the expression on her face. Eyes follow Megan's gaze over to Illyana and by consequence Richtor, and Mary.

"Hi."

They don't seem all that happy right now. And... he's starting to not feel all that comfortable either. The radio changing songs on its own does not help matters, nor the off time people appearing in the smoke.

"...It's just one of those weeks. Isn't it?" Mike mutters, shaking his head as he looks back to the odd figures. "A crispy clubber and an old timey baseball player perhaps?"

Sara Pezzini has posed:
They make a knot of people in the eddy of cold that whorls around them knee height. Strangers? Sara's investigative nostrils flare. Not seemingly unless they've given into the American impulse to speak to perfect strangers. But, the strangeness around them is enough to do that in her estimation until the conversation evokes the weirdness that has led her here.

As heads swivel towards the towers so does Sara's, her eyes widening at the burned man, then narrowing at the pain he doesn't show.

"You all seem to have a tab on what's going down here? Do you feel it, too?"

Stephen Strange has posed:
There's another hiss of static, and the country twang of Charlie Walker overtakes Prince as a new song begins to play on the radio of its own accord:

    "You're the gossip of the town
    But my heart can still be found
    Where you tossed it on the ground.
    Pick me up on your way down."

At their feet, the smoky darkness continues to flow in from the general direction of Brooklyn. From here, the strangeness that it brings with it can be seen more clearly. A large group of men with a deathly pallor and nineteenth century clothing spill out across the street, shouting and clamouring. They carry with them torches and other implements. A half-brick is hurled at a storefront and the sound of shattering glass follows, though just as quickly as they appeared they are gone and the destruction they left in their wake goes with them.

The radio hisses again, and finds Jackie Wilson mid-song:

    "Keep on lifting (love keeps lifting me)
    Higher (liftin me)
    Higher and higher (higher)."

Julio Richter has posed:
Julio doesn't entirely follow what Illyana is telling the group -- he's definitely the remedial student here -- but as her body becomes silvered in armor, he quickly grasps that pretense is not going to be the policy tonight. He draws in a deep breath, his quaking, shifting aura going from practically invisible to a green glow that's actually pretty bright in the gloom.

As he pulls in the energy of the earth, he sifts through it: normally he'd be feeling for caverns, metals, crystal, but tonight he's digging after that tremulous sense of wrongness that drew him here to begin with. As he does this, those with especially finely tuned magical senses might notice a dormant druidic talent shifting in him, something more than mutant or mundane reaching out to connect him to the ground they all walk on.

After a moment's thought, he sets his purchases down on the bench next to the vacillating boom box, a humble offering for the gods of the airwaves. While the others look at faces, he's going to try to feel for that thread again and follow where it leads.

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
For a moment, Illyana stares off into the darkness, levying a chunk of blame on someone not present in the flesh. Her back stiffens a little, though the manifesting pauldron and armoured sleeve scarcely allow her to relinquish less than perfect poise. "Illyana," she gives as a greeting in case they need it. Mary and Sara in particular; they are the unknown variables. Her Russian accent plants five timezones east of Moscow, further still.

Coming to appreciate familiarity, she waits for any more introductions before continuing to approach the building.

"Do you see them?" A gesture to the pair of men who don't seem to much respond to them. "Spirits. Any wrongness you might feel? This comes from the attack in Bushwick putting the spirit world in turmoil. These shadows are a mark of corruption, attacks against New York. The idea of New York, the intangible parts of its soul and its heart that live in your dreams, lives, ambitions of millions of people. For four hundred years of Europeans and the centuries of Native Americans before." This many words is almost tiring to manifest, because it takes seconds they barely possess, though they prove a necessity she cannot bear. It almost hurts to slow down. "Attacking this is like attacking your identity, the animating force of who you are. /Something/ pushes itself to awakening in the shadows and this kind of attack the average person won't see, barely feel, except as a guttering joy or the lack of inspiration. We can stop that tonight." A sickle sweep of her hand follows. The buildings, the music.

"We have no time to stay in one place. The Bronx itself has an animating spirit. Like Columbia is drawn to be America, da? Or Liberty, standing in for the US? So does the Bronx, a spiritual body made from the collective mass of its neighbourhoods, its people. Pick up the stereo, let's see if it plays when it moves."

This isn't easy to explain for someone who all but breathes magic, but she tries to make sense of it, for all that her senses scream to go /up/.

Michael Hannigan has posed:
"The feeling like you just stepped into a ghost story or wasn't told there was going to a costume party where you were going?" Mike asks Pez, still looking to the figures, "...yes." He glances over towards, the others, determining from their expressions that he didn' just start using dream sight unconciously and that this is actually happening.

As the group of men appear, Mike's eyes widen a bit as he starts to step back in reaction, "The fu-" As he shifts back, his form shifts slightly, the scar on his right forearm fading and appearing on his left. Facial features shifting as he becomes a mirror image of himself. Fortunately with the solid colored clothing and lack of patterns, it's not THAT big a change.

But as the figures vanish once more, he blinks, opting to just stay as is. Well gee, a premature phantasming. How embarassing.

Mary Bromfield has posed:
And that's when Mary realizes that Illyana 'armored' up without... any tangible means of doing so. And when Illyana explains what's happening, then Mary knows what she needs to do. Or what she thinks she needs to do. She nods once, taking a few steps back, "Inspiration... I might be able to help with that." Then she looks up at the sky, and takes a deep breath.

And when she speaks, seven thunders echo as she shouts, "SHAZAM!"

Lightning arcs down from the sky, impacting her and silhouetting her in the brilliance that, for a moment, outweighs the shadow. Then when the flash is gone, there's a slightly taller and older woman standing there, clad in a red tunic and skirt with a golden thunderbolt on the chest. The transformed woman looks a bit more at ease than the previous teenage girl did, eyes narrowing a bit as she glances over towards the new faces showing up, "Ghosts of the past..." She nods over at Illyana, "So we spread hope, as best as we can? I admit, this is a bit more... abstract than what I'm used to."

Megan Gwynn has posed:
Megan Gwynn narrows her eyes, glancing around, wings twitching as she notices the creepy mob. "Wait, what? It's like we're reliving memories..Where's the source?" she's got her magical senses peeled for the focal point of this craziness although the boom box is also eyed warily, "Heh, is it like, cursed? Maybe if we destroy it, it'll stop this madness.."

Although she hesitates to do just that, peering at Illy and her explanation. "..Or will that make things worse?" she frowns, hesitant to make a bad situation worse. Well she said pick it up so Megan does pick up the radio, peering at it then questioningly back at Illy, "Soo now what?"

And then Mary transforms and she meeps, stepping back. "Woah, that was sooo cool!" right of course, everyone here is probably super awesome powerful. Except maybe Megan..

Sara Pezzini has posed:
No sooner has the question left Sara's lips then the familiar glint of armor appears on the blonde woman's arm. The Witchblade's red stone strobes in response, casting a fiery glow up her sleeve that flows into the flat plates of a gauntlet that climbs past her elbow. There is a symmetry between her and the woman that introduces herself and prompts her own.

"Pezzini, Sara - 11th Precinct," the flat accent of her home ground, Brooklyn, seeds her voice, she gives a nod to them all. Illyana's words superficially make no sense to her; she can imagine the raspberries her colleagues would blat if they could hear them. The power that sheathes her arm knows, and she trusts that.

"Makes sense to me. Ghosts. Strong ones, too, from the looks of them if we can see them. Right?"

Pez doesn't stand still for a bolt of lightning; she nearly levitates at the flash, and the subsequent transformation of the young woman.

"Damn," she mutters after a deep, shaky breath. More loudly, "Looks like I'm with the right people. Whose got the boom box? I don't mind moving." Something prompts her to look up.

Stephen Strange has posed:
As Megan takes the boom box up in her hands, there's another hiss of static and immediately Stan Walker's R&B tones flutter out from the speakers:

    "I would say thank you
    Thank you ain't good enough."

The stereo now in Megan's hand, the sudden change in the air is noticeable. The smoke that was coiling about her ankles immediately recedes, leaving a physically impossible, smokeless ring of about two feet around her. Even the tendrils coiling higher than ground level seem to retract and avoid her. The darkness that seems to be encroaching from all about no longer seems to reach her, as though some inner glow keeps it at bay. It begins to play Mars Red Sky:

    "Up the stairs
    Climbing up the stairs
    Up to anywhere
    Anywhere"

By the door to the tower complex, the two spirits suddenly seem aware of the group. Most notably Mary, and the sudden burst of magical energy that is her transformative lightning bolt. They don't move, but they're no longer staring blankly ahead - now they're watching them.

Julio Richter has posed:
Julio was minding his own business, attuning to the etheric realm or whatever, and then Mary had to go and do THAT. The thunder knocks him right out of his reverie, and he just kind of gawks at her transformed, superheroic self for several seconds. Then, with a snorted laugh: "Si -- abstract. I'm right there with you."

It bears repeating: to his knowledge, Julio can't do wizard shit. One positive side effect of getting shaken back to his more mundane senses, though: it reminds him to see to a basic courtesy: "Julio." He doesn't stop to offer a hand to shake. There's work to do -- of a sort.

He falls in behind Megan on their way to the tenement tower, his fractured aura at the ready in case any of these restless New York spirits try to bar their way. Slowly, the rhythm of the music and their footsteps lull his consciousness back to the more instinctive level where he can feel the resonances he draws on. Not that, after that initial prodding, they've had much to tell him so far.

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
Thunderous pangs filling the air cause Illyana to turn very still, not the least of which may be the presence of lightning crashing down uon a mortal form. There may be an instant when the leyline threaded through the Bronx restlessly rises to the broken street surface, sorcerous commandments plunging a channel down into the wellspring to sample whether any of its illuminated mana is spared the torpid pollution bleeding from Brooklyn. Outwardly for the less sensitive, she wisely holds still until the woman in red manifests herself.

"Ghosts of the past," she confirms. "You walk where they walked, stand where they lived and spent and died. Spare the radio your wrath until we know its purpose in this. A key, possibly." Bitter smirk never reaches her eyes, cold as the arctic snows of her Siberian home. A subtle shift in her bearing circles on the tenement ahead of them, and barring the sky falling, she heads inside. Though the very thinnest edge of approval is for Sara, a gift in passing, quick for the detective catch; not at all.

The heavenly flame scorches a bitter path as she twists fingers over her head, leaving a hanging wisp to light the way. It throws silver sparks from an indigo core, bright in the gloaming to help others to see by. "Let's go floor by floor. Expect resistance. We cannot kick down every door." Perhaps that's for the whole of the spiritual embodiment of the building, to tell them no harm comes.

And the demon queen of Limbo may be lying through her teeth, telling eclipsed truths with a flat smirk. Up by the stairs, dancing at the exit sign and down. "Any of you from here? Where is the Eleventh Precinct? This is your home. Call back to it. Spirits know their own."

Michael Hannigan has posed:
Not expecting the sudden lightning strike near him, Mike jumps back, bringing his hands up to his ears in reaction to the LOUD NOISE. He blinks. "God...ga-" He shakes his head, realizing everyone was doing introductions so he gives a slight half wave. "...mike." Ok not a flashy introduction but of the senses he lost when phantasmed, hearing and sight were not one of them and they just got jarred a bit.

There was something about LIGHTNING!Girl saying something spreading hope, right? He glances to "Are you suggesting we sing a happy tune?" He turns his head to Illyana's inquiry, shaking his head no.

Mary Bromfield has posed:
Mary smiles over at Julio and the others, "Sorry about that... I'm just a girl from Queens. Thunderbolt." She nods at Julio, then flashes a grin towards Megan as she says that was pretty cool, "Thanks. Think this might be a bit better right now."

When Illyana provides the explanation, Thunderbolt nods, "Okay, then I guess we get going, though maybe not happy tunes, so much as positive thoughts. Memories of the neighborhood, the good times here?" She hmms a bit, "Admittedly, I'm not a wizard or anything, /but/... that seems to make sense to drive away the darkness."

Megan Gwynn has posed:
Megan Gwynn swallows a bit, staring at the boom box, then up at the stairs as the smoke swirls a ring around her. "Ooooh I get it, you want me to take you up those steps..Towards the tower? Towards the shadowy figures? Is this the good vibes we need to light the way through the darkness and purge the evil...Thingies?" she giggles,"Awesome! Let's go!" and then she proceeds up the tower steps, with absolutely nooo idea where they're headed or what they might meet at the top. But hey all these superhero types can deal with whatever is up there...Right?

Sara Pezzini has posed:
"Yo, Julio, it got you, too?" Sara feels a smile slide over her face amid the weirdness that the Witchblade has led her.

"You're kidding me, right? The message is in the music?" It's as rhetorical as a question can be. The fingers on the gauntlet sharpen into daggers as the two spirits focus on their group.

Illyana's smile sets off a tsunami of chills that eclipses any attempts at prized New York black humor on her part. After a little puzzled fronce of eyebrows at Mike, she nods and answers Illyana, "Brooklyn, folks from the Bronx might not agree, but we can do a New York 'whaddya whaddya' and say I'm from here. You saying these are my people?" She scrutinizes the two men that stared at them as they walk by. "Okay, got to treat them good then."

Stephen Strange has posed:
The radio in Megan's hands continues to play a happy melody as she begins to carry it towards the tower. The two spirits at either side of the entrance move towards her, but they too seem repulsed by the strange circle that also repels the smoke. They glare, the baseball player raises the bat threateningly and the burnt man swipes with bone-tipped fingers, but in the end, they can do no harm and the Pixie simply strides past them and into the foyer. Their attention is turned completely to watch after Megan and the radio, allowing an easy opening for the others to pass inside should they so wish.

The bank of elevators has caution tape strung across the entrance, along with a printed notice reading 'Out of Order'. The door to the fire stairs has been propped open with a cinderblock, and inside a flight of concrete stairs ascends the many floors of the residential block. The lighting fixtures inside flicker, casting a grimy light, and the smoking tendrils seem to be flowing up the stairs from the ground level rather than down from above. The radio changes stations once again, this time blaring Fisher:

    Hello, it's me - the girl you had to have
    Number twelve - remember me?

Julio Richter has posed:
Julio doesn't even bother acknowledging the question of whether he's from around here. Illyana knows the story and she said they're in a hurry; no need to waste time. "I don't think the Bronx is about cheerful tunes," he says instead, dipping a toe into the metaphysical discussion, perhaps to test just how out of his depth he really is. He hooks a thumb at the boom box. "If we're supposed to be singing the song of the Bronx -- the song of Bushwick, too -- it's not gonna be kid friendly."

He flashes a crooked grin at Sara, ticking his head back in an upward nod. "Yeah," he answers, hands rising with their verdant, shaky shine. "Vibes are kinda my thing. The boom hit my reset button, I guess." He turns the smile on Thunderbolt, at that, definitely teasing rather than resentful. "So, number twelve. Twelfth floor? Hope everyone has been doing their cardio." He spares a glance at the useless elevator, then heads for the steps.

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
"The Bronx is defiance and turning in against the lash. A middle finger raised over split knuckles, spitting in the gutter on fortune when your own runs out and keep going anyway." Words to mend no wounds pass Illyana's lips in a frisson of black silk and cracked velvet. They ascend within the cradles and graves of a lost generation, too many more. "Say that, if it is your tune. Maybe you remember the promise of green fields or the broken buildings glowing with fresh life. This land," stress there, "is your land. These dreams you shaped with your hands and words. Think in abstracts rather than absolutes."

Her own tale in this is not governed by the hum of music but the tilted click of her heel, the hiss of metal riding on metal, a glinting trident on blue cotton or black leather wrapped around her skin. What danger the spirits present within the protective spiral of song from the radio, she fails to much acknowledge. "Go on." A nod for anyone who would lag behind. The protection only goes so far.

The song tilts her head. "Great expectations... to hide me in your basement. The darkness rises. Check below first." Fragments and snapshots seized from the whirlwind of her opened Sight, the third-eye catching snatches of ruinous song. Songs she couldn't sing, but appreciates all the same. "Thirteen is a sacred number. One more flight will not kill us."

But will it?

Michael Hannigan has posed:
"Aptly named." Mike comments of Mary's title. "Well, for some, music's the only good thing. Feeling down, or discouraged, need to get into the right mental zone, blast some music for a pep talk from a non-judgmental source. But, if you're going for other stuff, there's a pretty cool Ice Palace just aways down in one of the warehouses." He pauses, thinking about what he said before giving a slight chuckle as he follows the group, "The Zoo and garden are pretty nice too."

He considers Megan's words "Well, if we want to overanalyze the song choices, maybe the boom box is saying music is alive, you take it with you, it'll always be there to bring you up, and take the stairs, the elevator sucks-" He pauses, eyeing the two ghosts as they make gestures towards Megan as the next song pops in. He blinks back to topic, "Number twelve... well it sounded like a good idea until the last part. Ok it's being a roadmap. Maybe apartment twelve? Probably would be easier to check there first." AND less Cardio.

Mary Bromfield has posed:
Thunderbolt flashes a grin back at Julio, "You sound like my girlfriend." She chuckles, "And besides, I'm originally from Philly, Eye of the Tiger is totally my speed." She just seems to radiate hope, unable to help herself as she hrms, "Twelfth Floor, or room twelve... but I guess there's only one way to find out. Seems like the boombox is trying to help, at least."

She grins at Illyana's words, "Besides, like I said, Philly. There's a reason we're the home of Rocky Balboa. It's not about how hard you hit, it's about how hard you get hit, and //keep moving forward//. Philly don't quit, ever. And neither does the Bronx I bet." She sparks a little bit of lightning at that, as she defers to Illyana in this, staying near Megan just in case she needs some sort of help.

Megan Gwynn has posed:
Megan Gwynn bites her lip as she passes the shadowy figures but thankfully they leave her alone. She steps into the foyer and peers around towards the steps, shivering at the sight of smoke, "Ohh yay, don't tell me we gotta climb to the twelfth floor? I suppose that's where we'll find the trouble, huh?"

She laughs nervously but proceeds to climb the steps. It would be easier to fly but it may be wiser to stay close to the others. Plus it could get crowded in here..

Sara Pezzini has posed:
"And here I was voting for apartment 12 on the second floor," Sara grumbles to keep her spirits up and remembers not to brush the hair from her face with her right hand. Their feet grit on broken glass and ash as they climb the stairs, Illyana's words ringing in her ears.

"That's this city from Hell's Kitchen to China Town to the Heights. It's all the little people with their dreams taking it on the chin, and then getting up to fight another day. Survivors and more than that."

To Mary, she stage whispers, "Philly is alright."

A warning, a voice, a flash of bloody violence make Sara hesitate between one step and the next. The Witchblade senses something approaching that puts it on guard.

Stephen Strange has posed:
The radio doesn't seem forthcoming with further details. It just keeps playing that same old song about the number twelve. The lobby itself, save for the space immediately around Megan, continues to swirl with that black smoke that seems to pour in from both above and below. Then, one by one, the flickering lights begin to fade before they burst with an electrical pop-hiss and plunge the place into darkness.

In Megan's hands, the radio plays the first synthesized chords of Michael Jackson's 'Thriller'. At the same moment, the darkness at the floor seems to take form. All but the Pixie feel skeletal hands reaching up impossibly from below, or out of darkened corners, to grab at them. Grasping, iron-hard, cold fingers squeezing with all the strength of a vice!

Julio Richter has posed:
"Check below?" Now you're talking," Julio says with a grin. He's not going to plow directly through the floor -- people have to live here, and it looks like the building could use a little TLC as it is -- but he can easily make a quick sweep down the stairs and check his preferred subterranean plane.

No shock, it's dark, but Julio doesn't need to rely entirely on sight, especially in the underground. Crouching at the bottom of the stairwell, he rappity-taps a breakbeat on the wall, breathing in the echoes as they dance through the solids and outline the space.

No odd feelings, nothing obviously important, no big sign with an oblique song reference or 'SOUL OF THE BRONX THIS WAY' written on it. The space is instead filled with more coiling, freezing smoke, seething with menace and pouring past him up the stairs.

He decides to follow suit. "Don't go down there," he advises the others when he returns, a little sheepishly. "If I don't like a basement, you won't either, trust me." He turns to try upstairs, following in Megan's shielded wake, but is interrupted as some of that basement smoke solidifies behind him, snatches the back of his vest, and yanks him bodily back down the stairs.

He hits the landing wall with a solid, painful-sounding whump. He drops to the floor and claws at it, trying to scramble back up to ground level on his hands and knees, but the clutching claws have other ideas, grabbing at his jeans and vest and sliding him further away. In a fight-or-flight instant, he forgets his choice not to mess with the architecture, rolls onto his back, and slams his green-limned palms together. With a deafening crack, an explosion of concussive force blasts out from him in every direction, smashing jagged lines in the concrete all around. If that holds off the hands for a moment, he's going to scramble back up to join the others.

Megan Gwynn has posed:
Megan Gwynn frowns, nodding to the others, "Or room twelve on the second floor. Seems a good place to start.." and then suddenly they're plunged into darkness and she gasps, glancing around, "H-hey! everyone?" she doesn't immediately see the skeletal hands creeping out of the darkness, but she senses dark magic of some sort and her eyes narrow, touching a hand to her chest and pulling out a glowing pink dagger the length of her forearm. "Skeletons!?" she grips the radio tightly, swinging the dagger at the nearest skeleton even though they're not attacking her directly, "Back off!" she yells

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
"It is a city of many places," Illyana tells Sara, "but this is the Bronx. Queens and Brooklyn are themselves, separate and indignant you would lump them together." Her teeth show, briefly, in what could be construed as a feral smirk with hints of a smile. "He is Riverdale and Mott Haven. She is the rot in South Bronx and broken dreams forged in Morrisania. They are Puerto Ricans and Albanians in Van Nest, Italians in Schuylerville, Dominicans and Blacks in Tremont."

The floating light burning over her head still glows like a defiant will-o-wisp, swallowing shadows encroaching on the fuzzy haze demarcating its outer boundaries.

Julio's departure goes while overseen by the sorceress piercing space in a pair of twinned portals, asp-bites on creation's face, to watch what transpires down there in the dark. Whilst he trundles around in the gloom, her observation slows her ascent and it's clear as much, letting Thunderbolt and Mike bypass her on the steps. A warning, "Tsch," cracks on pursed lips, and she's swiveling on the narrow confines of a riser, bringing forth the other half of the enchantment rendering her armour completely boring, almost inert by comparison.

It happens to carry the kindled light of a second star, tendrils of starlight and holy fire taking form from her aura as much as anything into a blade wreathed in flames. It might actually harmonically greet the Witchblade if such things were entirely possible, were the Soulsword not stabbed point down to root her flat to the firmament while backfolding space to fling Julio back beside Megan if she can. At least it's a fairly soft transition at a slanted angle so he isn't bound to crash down from the ceiling. "Number twelve," she doesn't grin. "Philly or Brooklyn or Harlem. /Go/."

Michael Hannigan has posed:
"Well, what else is there to do but to keep moving?" Mike comments, "Lying down licking your wounds isn't going to do much to change things."

As Sara mention's Hell's Kitchen, he lifts his hand in indication. "Gotham and the Kitchen. Before my current jobs." He pauses, "Some of us get lucky."

He pauses, "It seems like we got three places to check. But isn't splitting up in stories like this a big no no? You're just asking for a -" It is at this time that an odd thing occurs for the phantasm. When he's like this he has no sense of smell, taste, or touch. It is this unfeeling void where he's introduced to the sensory perception of something brushing up against his leg hard. "FFF!" He jumps, ending up getting jerked down, face planting into the floor. And yet he doesn't feel that. "CHANGE THE MUSIC!" He growls, face and clothes starting to darken with shadow of his own. Too much in too short a time period...This isn't good. Using the darkness, he goes back human, feeling the grip even more.

"Don't let the darkness, have it's way. Lucia's Light, Show me the way!" Like a switch has been turned on, the rather tangible Mike is now a living glowstick of holy light.

Mary Bromfield has posed:
Thunderbolt looks about to say something, and then she's grabbed by the shadowy claw-hands, and actually struggles for a moment, looking a bit surprised as she shouts, "You got to Keep. Moving. FORWARD!" And with that, she breaks free, an electrical burst seeming to come from her as she glances over towards Illyana.

Then she nods, "Philly is /on/ it." With that, she busts up towards the twelve floor, going ahead to where Illyana indicates, cracking her knuckles as she looks pretty much ready to punch the darkness.

Look, she's a fighter, not a wizard, no magic missile spells here.

Sara Pezzini has posed:
Sara doesn't have time to shrug off Illyana's dismissal of /her/ New York. A metallic ring of steel heralds a three-foot blade sliding from the gauntlet just as Julio's cheerful voice announcing basement badness disappears with him into the darkness below. The light from overhead runs in a blue flame down its edge as Mike calls for Saint Lucia, the blade responding to the holy evocation.

"Schizer!" Child of Brooklyn Sara grew up swearing in Yiddish much to her father's despair. The lights going out merit the word, the fingers even more. Corpse cold fingers pluck at her ankles through her pants. She strikes at the fingers that are worse than all the rats and cockroaches that inhabit New York tenements without thought, trying hard not to screech like a girl. She runs, hoping the music changes only knowing that Illyana guides them upward.

Stephen Strange has posed:
The hands try to grip tightly, but there is something ephemeral about them. They grasp at the idea of a person, rather than their physical self. It's an unsettling, icy touch. But as the Heroes ascend the stairs in the light of Megan's radio, the hands are forced to retreat. The narrow stairwell the dark spaces from which to emerge, and so the ascent to the twelfth floor is mercifully free of grasping, malevolent appendages.

The door on the twelfth-floor landing opens up to an unassuming, grimy corridor. The carpets have worn away leaving mostly concrete behind, and the walls are lined with graffiti. The lighting flickers dimly and scrunched up bundles of newspaper and other discarded flyers lay scattered about. Stuck to the wall by a wad of gum is an advertisement advertising baseball at the Polo Grounds for a date in 1895. It flutters as the radio. All the doors are shut, save for at the end of the hall that stands ajar.

    "Who left the door to Heaven open
    Who turned their head for a moment
    Who told you that my heart was broken
    And who left the door to Heaven open?

Julio Richter has posed:
Julio plummets through the bend in space mid-scramble, diving through where the stairs used to be to come up panting next to Megan. He takes surprisingly little time to refocus, though -- he doesn't need to orient through space when the Earth's resonance offers him a form of dead reckoning. He smacks his palms down on the floor, one-two-three-four, and tectonic vibrations shoot away through the surface, swinging slabs of the concrete floor up in improvised barriers between his companions and the clawing darkness.

"¡Vamonos!" he shouts, catching Megan by one elbow and the small of her back and whisking her up the steps. Mary's way is quicker, but boots on stairs will work in a pinch.

When they finally reach the floor in question, he separates from her again -- admittedly, more timidly after his last experience -- and heads cautiously for the open door. His mutant power isn't as strong this far up from the ground, but he still feels something, oddly enough.

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
The price of holding still means giving the skeletal hands something to gain purchase on. The feel of the pain and the bitter taste of death on her lips might cozen Illyana to react, though, the soulfire leached through her double-handed grip into the Soulsword an extension of self. She swivels against the awful chill, a snapped angular swing of the sword controlling it inside the narrow confines of the hallway. Blackness encroaches on her vision, ink spots widening as she slows against the chill numbing to the bones. Too much asked all at once, and she can only swim through that deepening water to fight back against the appendages reaching in their ichorous fantasy for you.

The door to Heaven open
The black gates of Hell are closed--

She growls at the antiphony of hauling herself up and back, trusting in Mary to charge up the stairs like a cleansing bolt of skyfire. Mike resonates that same weird light she does, in a way, cousins if not twins. Ringing steel and dappled, fluttering paper become a blind march, every grueling step burning resisting muscles and bones throbbing with a dark fever. She leans against the wall within the charmed circle. She will wait, a watcher in the night, blood seething in the glow.

For Mary it's different, circling the hall, waiting by the door and touching the flyers where they flap against her. Calling out the fighting songs.

Michael Hannigan has posed:
You could say Mike has a glowing personality but he's not really making much in commentary at the moment, lips lowly adding words as his leg is freed, allowing for him to continue upwards, maintaining the light, some parts audible, some parts not.. '... How can you fight back, when you can't see the threat? Oh it seems hopeless, but don't dare give up yet...'

His mouth is otherwise occupied but his ears can still hear the lyrics as he tilts his head towards the open door.

Mary Bromfield has posed:
Mary moves forward, not hesitating as she shouts defiantly in the darkness, "Yo, you think you're terrifying? You ain't nothing. I've seen scarier things than you for free in my breakfast cereal!" She's normally pretty soft-spoken, but she /is/ from Philly. She doesn't take this guff from any sort of supernatural darkness.

Besides, she has four little brothers, she doesn't tolerate bullies of any type, no matter how fantastical they might be.

She follows along with Julio, not hesitating as she goes towards the door, giving him a warm smile, "We got this." As she's trying to just project that confidence and hope, trying to chase away the darkness in her own way.

Sara Pezzini has posed:
Even an athlete would be winded at the end of a twelve-story run. Sara bends over, heaving for breath but is too wary of giving in to the need for air. The open door beckons, she follows behind the others, the blade, an extension of her arm raised before her. Mary's bravado makes her smile.

She chants to herself. "I feel the light in my heart, the light from the fire..."

Stephen Strange has posed:
As Julio approaches the door, it seems to open in response. From within an old man with dark skin, weathered features, and eyes thick with cataracts emerges. His bald head is surrounded by a half-tonsure of snowy white hair, and he tilts his head as though listening to the air. Slowly his features crack into a broad, toothless smile. He leans heavily on a cane as he steps out into the hallway, shuffling with elderly intent towards Megan and the radio. As the others begin to sing, he brightens up considerably. He moves with less pain and frailty, as though the myriad songs are breathing a new life and vitality into him. The volume increases, the channel changes again:

    "Every step I take, every move I make
    Every single day, every time I pray
    I'll be missin' you

The old man, with trembling hands, reaches out to take the stereo from Megan. The moment he touches it, there is a change. The age and world-weariness seem to melt off him like a thin layer of frost. He's no longer an old man but a youth barely out of his teens. He wears a hodgepodge of hip-hop fashion from the early 80s all the way to the modern era. Bloused pants, a high-fade haircut, and a platinum grill. He smiles broadly, slinging the stereo up onto his shoulder like an ancient king taking up his ancestral blade. The stereo hisses and changes again as the whole building seems to thrum malevolently, the closed doors on the corridor rattling heavily on their hinges.

    "Body movin', body movin', body' movin
    We be body movin'"

Julio Richter has posed:
Julio flashes a smile back at Thunderbolt; clearly, he's a little bit rattled, but her confidence is bracing. Besides, there's no way in hell or Lower Manhattan he's going to back down now. When the old man appears, he watches him, half puzzled, half concerned, but then Megan hands off the boom box. The transformation, both in appearance and sound, gives him an odd, warm thrill. In a moment's probably ill-thought-out gesture, the Latino youth raises one fist to offer daps.

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
When the world bends to the tune and the riff, the wicked rhymes to an urban heartbeat and the resuscitated thrill pulsing through the veins and arteries of the city...

It's time to go home.

"Last but not the least." Illyana steps off of the wall with a hiss, her fortitude pushed much as the others' has been. "Last stop, Greenwich Village." The sword lights the path when she lifts it, giving the final shuddering spark to something different from the portal Julio summarily traversed. There are places outsiders do not need to walk, places you don't talk the Bronx to.

Sparks dance, collapse, and then burst outwards like fireworks in the Obon festival, or Chinese New Year raging over the cities on the South China Sea. Gold and copper, wasted silver and explosive bronze rotate in a wild profusion that finally form a circle showing a clear sign of Greenwich on the other side.

And one freaked out squirrel, flat to the ground, his tail arched wildly. Doreen may or may not be happy.

Michael Hannigan has posed:
As the elderly man becomes not as elderly upon recieving what is possibly his stereo and *ahem* pumps up the volume, Mike stops murmuring his lyrics, allowing for the glow of his skin to fade away. The only beam coming from him is the smile as the seen reaction touches him a little. He can understand how music can have a bit of a rejeuvenating effect on someone. Maybe not THAT literally but still. Music can make a lot of things better by just existing.

Although, the building doesn't seem too happy about the reunion. He looks over to Illyana for an explanation. Still not quite sure what the objective is other than to piss off some ghostly doormen and skeleton hands. But hey, she's produced a way to leave the building that doesn't involve the stairs. After seeing Richter pop through he shrugs and hops through too. Just by saying 'Greenwich' it just made sense.

Mary Bromfield has posed:
Thunderbolt grins over at Julio, "Seems like duty calls, see you over there." With that, she nods over at Julio, giving the now young-man with the boom box an approving smile. With that, she steps through the offered portal, humming 'Eye of the Tiger' under her breath as she goes.

Sara Pezzini has posed:
Sara brightens at the transformation of the old man, thinking of elderly dementia patients responding to their favorite music. That happy moment fades quickly.

The Witchblade sings counterpoint to the deep bone-jarring vibration that vibrates the building, singing in harmony with the blade that Illyana wields. Trusting blindly, Sara walks through the festoons of light into the portal.